A chap I know will spend his six-month long-service leave teaching English in Cambodia. Having heard about it, I emailed to tell him about a rather ingenious and all-but-forgotten teaching method known as Basic English. An English linguist, Charles K. Ogden, had compiled a vocabulary of 850 words that covered everything necessary for day-to-day purposes, and the Australian immigration department used it in the 1960s to teach us a rudimentary knowledge of English aboard the migrant-ship.
This Basic English course and my trusty old Langenscheidt Englisch-Deutsch/Deutsch-Englisch dictionary (32. Auflage 1964 - and I still have it today!) together with the later acquired Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary saw me through those early days when every Australian was allowed to feel superior to everyone else who spoke with a non-English accent which in their eyes was equal to some sort of mental deficiency.
Well, the Cambodia-bound chap picked me up on my use of the contraction "you're" in my email and ruminated, "I must compliment you on your English. I know a number of Australians who don't know how to use the words 'your' and 'you're' in the correct context." What did he expect? That I oughtn't be able to speak or write proper English - or possibly do so even better than a native speaker - because I was born in Germany? I wasn't born with any accounting knowledge either and finished up as a Chartered Accountant!
It makes me wonder if he knows how to spell "patronising".
